Exam Prep Section B

How do contemporary media represent different collective groups in different ways?

·         This must be the main focus of your essay

·         Diverse representations including fiction, non-fiction and self-representation

·         Harry Brown, Fish Tank, The Inbetweeners, Attack the Block, The London Riots news coverage, The Internet and self-mediation

How does contemporary representation compare with that of the past?

·         Examples needed for similarity and difference

·         Examples from the past – Quadrophenia – the film and the representation of Mods and Rockers

·         Have they changed? – Plato Quote…?

What are the social implications of different media representations of groups of people?

·         Stereotyping: What is the impact?

·         What power does the audience have to ‘resist’?

·         Propaganda, Moral Panic, youth as an empty categories, cultural hegemony, Stuart Hall and reading the texts and their messages

·         Statistics on result of these representations on attitudes and beliefs Vs the reality of the issues

To what extent is human identity increasingly ‘mediated’?

·         Increasing media = increasing mediation?

·         Representation by others/ by selves (facebook/youtube (youthtube))

·         Be critical of who is offering the representations and for what purpose?

·         Mediated: how the media shapes your world and the way you live in it

Guidance

·         Add your own personal opinion

·         What, in your opinion, is the future of representations and what are you basing this on?

·         Connections must be made between the examples/ contrasts are discussed

·         You must embed the theory into what you are saying

·         Must refer to more than one media – at least two different forms (film, print, internet)

Examiner Advice – Structure

·         Introduction – start with a quote, paraphrase it, and link to issues of identity, representation and the media. State your focus (social group and texts)

·         Historical example

·         Contemporary examples

·         Connect examples together

·         Conclusion – return to start. Prediction to the future.

·         Use referencing – name and year of publication given after first mention (e.g Giroux 1997)

·         Quote – paraphrase – critique

·         One text older than 5 years

·         Other texts should be from within the last 5 years

·         Make a prediction  for the future

·         Historical representations

– example – significance – theory – critique

·         Contemporary examples – newspapers

 – example – significance – theory – critique

·         Contemporary examples – film

- example – significance – theory – critique

Contemporary examples - TV

 - example – significance – theory – critique

·         Connections /effects

Conclusion

·         Return to the start

·         Summarise the key idea

·         Prediction for the future

·         Mass media construct representation of youth from a middle class, adult perspective, for the ideological purpose of maintaining hegemony

·         Impact of new media technologies/ internet  - more potential for self-representation; limited impact compared to mass media